Man loses weight playing Wii Sports

Nintendo's Wii games console will help you lose weight, at least if you play the bundled Wii Sports title on a regular basis. So claims a North American fan of the machine, and he's posted the results of a six-week weight-loss experiment conducted with the console to prove it.

Mickey DeLorenzo, 25, began his fitness regime on 3 December 2006, intending to play Wii Sports for 30 minutes each day for the six weeks to 15 January 2007. He ate and drank as normal during the test. Indeed, his lifestyle remained unchanged from the period before the experiment. The only modification was the addition of the 30-minute gaming session.

The results: DeLorenzo claims his weight fell from 181lbs (82kg) to 172lbs (78kg), and his Body Mass Index (BMI) - essentially a height:weight ratio - fell from 25.2 to 24.0. With the aid of a fitness specialist, he measured a two per cent body-fat loss over the period.

A chart published on DeLorenzo's WiiNintendo.net blog interestingly shows an small weight gain just after Christmas, indicating that yes, the guy did indeed make merry over the festive period, but he was able to return to his pre-Yule weight within a week, and after a further week had passed his weight was effectively where it would have been had Christmas not intervened.

Of course, none of this is entirely surprising. We can confirm - as we mentioned in Reg Hardware'sWii review, Wii Sports is all about getting you off the couch, onto your feet and moving about. We worked up quite a sweat when we tried it. Any exercise is good, and a daily 30-minute routine at the gym or running around the park is likely to yield similar results.

Still, it's nice to know that video gaming, traditionally viewed by its opponents as a slothful, character-weakening activity, can have the opposite effect.

Of course, how soon it will be before someone sues Nintendo complaining its console, without any warning, made them skinny, is anyone's guess... ®